Merchants brainstorm ways to promote Main Street

A cellist warmed her bow on the strings of her instrument in front of Mike's on Main Thursday morning, while upstairs Main Street merchants in the market for better marketing techniques took notes.

By Emily WeaverTimes-News Staff Writer

A cellist warmed her bow on the strings of her instrument in front of Mike's on Main Thursday morning, while upstairs Main Street merchants in the market for better marketing techniques took notes.Officials from the city's Main Street group and Henderson County Travel & Tourism outlined resources available to help them.Step 1? Make yourself known.“I'm only as good as the information I have to promote you with,” said Elizabeth “Beth” Carden, executive director of Travel & Tourism. “People want to know what's available here.”She told the merchants that for less than $400 they could have 10,000 rack cards printed and ready for distribution at tourist hotspots like the Visitor’s CenterRack cards, she said, more so than fold-out brochures, are the way to go these days. The center, at 201 S. Main St., went through a recent reorganization to put information about local opportunities in the initial line-of-sight of walk-in guests.Carden said they focus their ads in specific publications and at certain times to attract tourists in the spring, summer and fall. But getting tourists in the shops once they're here may call for more local advertising.“Don't cut your advertising,” she said. “I'm trying to bring them to the county. It's up to you to get them in your shop.”Eva Ritchey, owner of Once Upon a Sign at 305 N. Main St., asked about the tourism group's plans for marketing to the Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C. area. Carden said that since typical visitors from that market are daytrippers, they focus their outreach on special event-specific marketing.Do you have any money for us to participate with you in cooperative advertising?, Ritchey asked.Carden said they operate with a $1.3 million budget and although they do not have funds earmarked specifically for co-op ads, they have partnered with others in those types of ads in the past. A full-page color ad in Southern Living costs Travel & Tourism $10,000, she said, but they have sold smaller blocks of space on their ad to other businesses for $250 apiece.Waving a handful of used coupons, Patty Adamic, owner of Mike's on Main, told the group of a marketing approach that has helped her. For $295, she placed a coupon in a local value guide mailed to 20,000 homes that she said generated tons of revenue. The coupons that have entered her store in the weeks since show a return on her investment.“It works,” she added.Main Street Director Lew Holloway said that in June 2012, the Main Street Advisory Committee identified the need for a re-focused marketing effort which targeted the Henderson County area.Their decision was driven by a “fundamental need to connect more effectively with the local population and to solidify downtown's brand as a local destination.” He said it also reflected a “concerted effort” to focus the organization's limited marketing dollars to deliver a message that would “generate a sufficient number of impressions and influence buying decisions.”Working with Summit Marketing, Holloway said they developed a media plan “which primarily focuses on print, radio, Web and social media outlets that have the greatest reach in Henderson County.”He said about $40,000 of their annual budget is set aside for marketing. That limited reserve is channeled into target-specific campaigns to get people to come downtown and attend events. Citing statistics from national studies addressed at last week's North Carolina Main Street Conference, Holloway said 70 percent of sales are attributed to curb appeal; women are the majority spenders; and 70 percent of retail spending occurs after 5 p.m.A lot of people who work are not able to come downtown in the middle of the day to shop, he added. The trends that are out there now are suggesting that people are shopping later. “If more people were open late, we'd pull more people into downtown,” said Sherry Schmidt, owner of Four Seasons Christmas, Garden, Décor and More at 225 N. Main St. “We have a reputation for being closed.”Another merchant said they tried staying open late before, to no avail. Holloway added that some of the trends suggest just staying open late once a month is not often enough to attract a big boost in business.He encouraged merchants to attend the regular monthly meetings of the Main Street committees.“We need you to come to the meeting and participate with us on solutions; that's basically the key,” he added.The big push at a recent Travel & Tourism conference, Carden said, was to “partner, partner, partner.”“We're known as a destination all across the country,” she said. “If you put your money together, there is so much more you can do.”She advised that merchants utilizing the resources of Travel & Tourism and the city's Main Street organization can lead to stronger success.Main Street Advisory Chair Tom Orr asked about efforts being made to explain the history behind the well-used tagline “Historic Hendersonville.” The phrase has become almost second nature, he said, but do we know what it really means?Carden said that due to the small size of their staff they may not be able to tell the history as well as others can throughout the district. They rely on locals to help them with the message. She proposed creating a history trail around the county for tourists.Orr said he, too, was thinking of a historical tour of downtown coined “Blocks of Time,” where the history of each block and storied past of buildings are unveiled. Taking a page from Hollywood, known for its stars on the walk of fame, Orr has said Historic Downtown Hendersonville could have its own trail of history.Reach Weaver at emily.weaver@blueridgenow.com or 828-694-7867.